I’m just a little bit late to the Baldurs Gate 3 party, but I searched on here and didn’t see much follow up discussion about it after the review thread. I’m also trying to submit more to Lemmy so the communities can grow, so I thought I’d bring it back up now that it has been out for a few weeks.
I only just bought Baldurs Gate 3 this week and finally got time to sit down and play it tonight for the first time really and I am so impressed. The character creator allows so much character expression. I made a generic red Tiefling and when I saw there was an option to add vitiligo, I immediately built out a head canon where my character is a Tiefling that is slowly being transformed into a human by a curse from his past. I never would have thought of a character like this, but the character creator just provided some pretty unique designs and options.
Everything just feels so polished. I’ve played Pathfinder Kingmaker before this and parts of Wasteland 2, but I’ve never been much of a CRPG fan. I feel like the user interface in this game is a lot easier to follow and read. It’s especially nice because I played in co-op with a friend that doesn’t play much in the way of RPGs and has only ever played tabletop D&D once and he was able to easily slot in and start figuring out how things work together and where everything in the UI was. It was very entry-level friendly for our experience and it made the entire experience a lot better.
Also it’s kind of a weird thing but I’m really impressed with the facial animations so far. I was expecting Bioware or Bethesda style faces where their lips move, but their faces are otherwise lifeless. I’ve been loving seeing the character seemingly actually move their eyebrows and their jaws when they’re speaking.
I’m not super far into the game since I’ve only had time today to play it, but I’m super excited to play more when I get the chance.
What have your experiences been like? Any fun stories or characters you’ve made?
I’m just a little bit late to the Baldurs Gate 3 party,
Late? As a patient gamer I would say you got in early. :)
I played most of the mainstream CRPG, including multiple Larian Studios titles and I have no doubt that I will play BG3 as well… But probably in a year or two after the game gets some polish and, hopefully, a discount.
BTW, thanks for posting and generating content in Lemmy.
Right? Game is brand spankin’ new lol
It’s not even out yet on some platforms.
Remember jts been in development for 6 years and 3 of those were beta testing. This game has been getting played and polished for 3 years.
It is being highly spoken of because of its completeness and non brokenness.
I think the state of games these days had made you expect a tued sandwich on day one until a year or so in.
This isnt that. I assure you. Its fantastic. Couldnt recommend it enough.
Removed by mod
Oh, totally fair. Theres bugs. But not on the level of AAA fames that get churned out. This game sits in a completely different category to other games in terms of development and quality etc.
The point veing you dont need to wait for it to be polished as its been in that process for longer than any other AAA game at release.
There’s also no statute of limitations with Baldur’s Gate games. When there are people still getting into the previous games in the series for the first time 20 years after they were released, you have a little more of a grace period before considering yourself “late to the game.”
BG2 is my favorite game of all time and anything that gets more people to give it a shot is a good thing.
It just so happens that is what inspiring people to give it a shot may be the best game of all time.
for someone without crpg experience is the ingame tutorial enough or I need to find youtube tutorial before starting ?
If you played any d&d game (videogame or paper) is easier. If you played previous BG, it helps in some lore, but overall I think its quite easy to get in some more classic classes, like warrior, cleric, wizard or rogue
I cannot help you with BG3 as I have not bought it yet.
Having said that, and knowing other games from the same developer, I guess BG3 is probably friendly enough to new players to CRPG. Just be warned that it is probably also overwhelming (I played the last two games and they took me more than 100 hours each).
I feel like there’s two parts. On the one hand, Larian’s engine is fantastic and allows really creative and diverse approaches to their puzzles. There’s a number of fights that feel more like puzzles than fights, because they’re nearly impossible if you just go in spells blazing, but not nearly as threatening with a little preparation. They’ve honed that engine through DOS & DOS2, so it’s much more mature than you’d get if this were a pure derivative of BG1/2. The first time I lit Shadowheart up with Spirit Guardians and dashed her around a battlefield reaping the canon fodder…I actually giggled with glee.
Then there’s the storytelling. My journal is filling up with quests & side quests, but I don’t think any of them have been the “Kill 5 orcs,” “gather 10 blood moss,” or “deliver this McGuffin” variety. The NPCs you meet tend to reappear later and react differently depending on how their previous quest ended. I suppose, technically, that’s similar to going back to the same quest-giver, rising in their ‘ranks’ toward some prize, but it doesn’t feel the same. The NPCs, even the side-quest NPCs, feel like they’re woven into the overall narrative and it makes for a much more immersive experience.
I can’t imagine how much writing, animation, and voice acting had to be done to accommodate all the choices I won’t make. Even just the times some NPC voices my gender.
I agree about the quests feeling fairly good, but my hod is the jour Al itself atrocious. No way to remove/hide quests from the map. Many quests sort of remain in this “not done” quest state because completing it will have undesirable outcomes and it feels weird that I have to keep it there still
I respect this take but also can you translate that first sentence
I think it’s, “but my god is the journal itself atrocious”
It is super bad lol
They did detailed, stylistic, expressive animations for ANIMAL BODY LANGUAGE. and yes, you can talk to random rats and squirrels.
I agree, and the fact the NPCs have conversations and stories that play around you which are not automatically turning into quests for you to do (sometimes even chiding you for eavesdropping) makes the world feel much more alive and less player-centric.
I’m playing a gnome druid with dark urge, his troubled background is what causes the urges but deep down he just wants to be a good guy. Although, the urges do sometimes win, he tries to shop with every merchant to help the local economies. While necromancy is typically considered evil, he views it more as a “it’s stopping living people being hurt in battle.”
I only bought it last week and I’m already up to 50 hours, but I feel there’s so much I’ve missed. The amount of content is insane, and speak with animals/speak with dead just seems to increase it even more. I’ve been talking to every animal I came across and the depth of every character surprises me every time. It’s nothing like Bethesda’s “go talk to the boss, I’m a lowly grunt” esque chats, even the children have their own entire arc. I may be slightly enamored with it, I’d go so far to say this should be the gold standard of game releases.
Lol I missed out on speak with animals with the startled boar near the beginning area and I’ve regretted it ever since. Makes me want to reload a save and see what it has to say.
Edit: *Makes me, not “Make some”.
Love mobile.
Yeah… I want to go back and turn into an animal first before I talk to the boar. Just to see what happens!
I’m sure he doesn’t give you anything special but my curiosity must be satisfied!
I discovered speak with animals last night and my friends and I were having a riot hearing what the animals had to say. A cow talked shit at me, a rat led me to treasure. Fantastic
I’m 60 hours in and I just discovered that there’s an act 2…
My only complaint is that you can’t rename your backpacks
I just use the unique named backpacks I find. Like I have a “backpack,” “Bewildered Adventurer’s Backpack,” “Old backpack,” “Rotting backpack,” etc.
I keep my potions in the bewildered bag, scrolls in the old bag, and throwables in the rotting bag. All the quest items (except the damn artifact) into the backpack I started with, along with my alchemy and supply pouches, gold and keyring.
That’s a excellent idea. I’m going to start doing it that way until someone makes a backpack naming mod
Thank you for that! I’ll have to use that on my next run
I would LOVE to rename backpacks/chests. I’ve gone way too deep collecting storage containers lol
I have a barbarian that throws smokepowder barrels at people
This game is fucking amazing
I’m over 60 hours in and afraid to ask. Backpacks?
Backpacks. Yep.
I had to give up by hour 50 trying to better organize things
If you pick up container items like satchels and backpacks, you can use them as nesting storage in your inventory (perfect for all the letters and notes you pick up for example). But you can’t name the container, it’s just “pouch”
Oh shit, I didn’t even think of picking those up. I only just discovered I can pick up the books that default to reading on click. Didn’t even think to use that on backpacks.
Loving the game as well but the character creation is kinda limited. Everyone turns out sounding like a Shakespeare actor, and looking too prim and proper.
I understand why that is, a game as large as this would be impossible to make with the range of voice variety I’m hoping for. Unrealistic on my part.
That said, the game is incredible, and as long as you accept what the character creator gives you, the models and faces look great
Yeah, was expecting a lot more from character creation, but it’s just the same as DOS2. I mean most of the game is just DOS2, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, DOS2 was awesome. Just do yourself a favour and get this mod, it makes the game much more playable.
My first dude was a Dragonborn and that was my thought with the voice options, too. My dragon doesn’t sound like a dragon. He actually sounds like me, IRL.
Yeah that’s the one thing severely lacking: Character screen voices. There’s only 8 of them!
They should put out a call to the community to make more and hold a silly contest where the winners get their voices into the game. All Larian has to do is release the scripts and provide somewhere for folks to upload the audio files.
They don’t even need to listen to 99% of them themselves! Just let the community listen to them and vote. Then Larian will only have to listen to like the top ten or twenty and they can have a second round where contestants are given instructions to “fix” certain audio files or whatever (e.g. to make them shorter or longer to match the cut scene timing).
Dunno why this is downvoted. My half-orc barbarian sounds like a schoolboy and it is weird.
Perfect is the enemy of good but I’d love a PC chatter mod.
That would be a fun idea! Probably a lot more difficult to implement than we imagine, but if I had the time, I’d totally record some voice lines going to get in a game I enjoy!
It’s great, the voice acting seems really good right across the board too. Overall it makes for quite an engaging world and story at least for me. I’ve run into a fair few bugs and annoyances but fortunately nothing too major, been having a blast so far! Hopefully the issues that are there get patched soon.
If you don’t want to wait for patches and/or just want to customize your experience, there’s already a bustling mod scene over on the Nexus, getting bigger and better pretty much every day!
I’d just like to add that installing mods via vortex (Nexus mod manager, usually very solid) gave me a lot of issues and I had to use a mod manager built for BG3 to mod easily.
I’m sure I just wasn’t paying attention and just decided to look for an easier method.
If anyone is interested, just reply here and I’ll find the info on the mod manager when I get home.
Tl;Dr - Check individual mod install notes, BG3 doesn’t mod quite as easily as say Skyrim.
Thanks for pointing this out. I use Baldurs Gate 3 Mod Manager too and make sure to follow the advice of the second pinned comment here every time I save my new load order. I don’t know if it’s necessary to use the mod fixer mod itself when you do that, but I have it installed just in case and every mod that isn’t pre-release or broken works for me with no further issues!
Is there a list of mods I can browse online before installing the mod manager?
There sure is!
I tried to use the mod manager to install the ‘fixer’ mod that most nexus mods claim is essential to their use.
Not sure if it’s something to do with a recent update, but the only way I could get the mods to work was by… simply copying and pasting them into the mods folder recommended by Larian lol. ‘more actions’ and ‘more spell slots’ have made the game enjoyable for me as a newcomer.
Removed by mod
I’ve been lost in the underdark for hours
It’s really, really great. I’m hoping they use the platform for more content, it’s fucking incredible.
It would be cool if they added more 5e character creation content (particularly subclasses and feats), as well as potentially other adventures down the road
They need more customization of genitals, I say!
I remember hearing the older CRPGs served as a platform for modders to add some insane content so I really hope we see a lot of that with Baldurs Gate 3
There were a good couple of spinoffs from the OG like icewind dale. I dont game as much now, and at the rate im going it will take ages to finish BG3 but i’m sure we will see it.
I’m not sure if I’m enjoying it yet. I’m only 4 hours in and it feels like Divinity Original Sin 3 and not a Baldur’s Gate game. Maybe that’s fine, but it’s not what I was expecting.
The combat seems more complicated and I’m having to rest after even basic encounters, but I guess that’s the way BG1 was too.
Still messing with the graphics settings to get it to look decent and run ~60FPS on my creaky old Vega 56.The combat becomes much better when you gain some levels. Early you only have few spell slots and cool bonus actions. I can assure you it gets better the longer you keep going, especially if you loot all the usable consumables (scrolls, arrows, etc)
I’m 65 hours in, I’m on act 1.
It’s the first game I bought for full price since… since I had Steam at least, probably even further than that. And I’m definitely not regretting that, it’s awesome
My sister keeps telling me to get it. Our Mom is currently in town and staying with me. Unfortunately, my office doubles as a spare bedroom so I can’t play rn. I don’t want her to leave, but I also want her to leave haha.
Aaaah I feel that. I’ve been sitting on it trying to make time to play it. It’ll be great once you get the chance!
There is [email protected]
Thanks for the heads up, I’m currently avoiding the main community for spoilers but I plan to join and communicate when I get farther in
I’m looking forward to it! I bought it on Steamdeck, but had to refund because I couldn’t get it to run decently… felt I would be doing it a disservice with all the compromises. So I’m not waiting for the PS5 release…
I was considering getting it for my steam deck. If you don’t mind me asking, how bad was the performance?
Well, my problem is partly that I play docked, so every issue is magnified up to 50 inches… so take what I say with a pinch of salt.
I managed to get it to run at a fairly stable 30fps, but the settings were so low that everything looked pretty muddy and basic. You can turn off the FSR to get it to look less blurry at 800p, but it still looked pretty bad. Generally, everything just looked a bit unstable, you know? Hair was pixelated, lines were jaggy everything felt jumpy and gritty. I’m sure it would look better on the SD screen itself.
I also read that Act 3 onwards takes a further hit to performance… so at that point I decided to cut my losses. Shame… it’s the first game where I’ve genuinely felt the SD isn’t up to it.
I noticed the same as I primarily play docked too. But I got sucked into the game and just have been dealing with it. I figured on subsequent playthroughs maybe I’ll play it on my desktop PC.
Phew… I was starting to think I was the only docked Steamdeck gamer in the whole universe!
I’ve played about 70% of my 20ish hours so far on Steam deck, and honestly, it’s awesome. Controls work out of the box since release. I don’t really care all that much about graphics, and they’re passable on the deck. I can imagine it’s probably really bad if you dock it and play on the big screen, but handheld it’s perfectly fine and very convenient. Drains battery like a mf, though.
Have you gotten to act 2 or 3? From what I’ve heard the deck plays fine until you get too far into the game, and then it is unplayable.
I think I had a consistent 30 FPS on medium settings. Said performance degraded as the game progressed. My high end PC struggles with Act 3 for some reason, I don’t know where the bottleneck is there, but I decided from there that I wouldn’t even try to run the game on the Steam Deck that late in to the game.
I’m playing on desktop mode and the graphics are more than good enough for me, but I’m not a AAA hound, aside from rare occasions like this so I don’t mind.
Absolutely great game! And being a Larian’s title means the game will only get better and better with updates and good mod support! Like you said they really did a good job to make the game easy to follow. As an one who never played any tabletop RPGs, I couldn’t understand how the combat worked in the first Pathfinder game (like at all) so I eventually dropped it, but this is not the case for BG3.
All the classes are surprisingly fun too. Like I did think I would enjoy Berserkers but they are even more funnier than I have ever imagined - when there’s any problem, just roar them out, or grab it up to hit another problem and make them both prone. And I already have planned 4 or 5 classes to try in the future. Now if only they can make save files smaller in size (got 1.4G of them now)…
I don’t play that much any more sadly, only one evening per week with the buddies but BG3 looks very appealing. Do you think it can be enjoyed casually ?
No. I’m playing on the easy/story mode and the battles still take forever. Especially early on when you’re learning the game you can expect ordinary fights to last 10-15 minutes on average, big fights can last much longer and end with your death which makes them feel pointless. Movement is also very slow, it takes a long time to get anywhere. There’s also a ton of inventory management you’ll need to do + the learning curve if you don’t know D&D already.
It’s a very good game but there’s nothing casual about it. People will recommend the game to you anyway but I don’t think it’s a good fit for casual players. Also, the game gets buggier and buggier the farther you get from Act 1. I would at least wait for it the last two acts to get fixed, act 3 is actually really bad right now.
The fucking inventory management is the worst. It’s so slow and clunky. What’s annoying is that there are bags and pouches you can put stuff into to better organize but the things like lotions and throwables don’t show up on your hot bar. They have a dedicated bag for alchemical ingredients and one for camp supplies, but I wish they had gone further and made one for books, throwables, potions, special arrows, etc.
Also there’s no easy way to look at camp items and all your characters. Especially ones not in your party. So moving stuff around or trying to optimize equipment is super annoying and time consuming. Especially if you have one set of armor you like to use but want to bring on two different characters depending who is in your party.
One thing I like is that characters automatically teleport keys to each other as needed. The game even calls it magic pockets when it happens. You can move items between characters freely in combat. I just wish there was a way to have a pooled inventory then that way we could have all characters have access to scrolls and stuff without having to move them.
And encumbrance becomes annoying because of everything you mentioned. I pick everything up. So the 25 goblin bows and scimitar all add up in weight. My main character is a sorcerer so every once in a whole I have to move all the junk from him to the barbarian
If encumberence is your main complaint there are mods to make it higher. I’ve been considering it because encumberence is really only a fun limitation when planning what to bring into an area, not when planning what to bring out, and I hardly use consumables anyways. So really it just saves time not having to go to camp and back.
Yeah, super annoying. I have a melee ranger with 19 strength and still have to dump my inventory pretty often.
No. I’m playing on the easy/story mode and the battles still take forever.
So they’ve actually captured the tabletop experience with this game.
Huh. I’m no “pro gamer” but that hasn’t been my experience on balanced. My longest fight has been 20 minutes but a 4v3 or 4v4 has been taking just a few.
Mileage varies I guess
I’ve just had a baby and can only manage to play half an hour here and there randomly. It’s awesome.
If you loved baldurs gate as much as I used to, definately worth it.
It can be enjoyed casually solo or with close family like a girlfriend or teenage kids. But with friends you need to schedule long sessions because it’s a huge game. It has 3 difficulties: explorer, balanced and tactician. So a solo explorer play through could be done casually in 30 minute chunks. You might have to pause mid combat during longer fights but it has quick save so you can finish it later.
It can be enjoyed casually solo or with close family like a girlfriend or teenage kids.
One thing to be aware of is that it’s not designed for drop-in multiplayer. I offered to be player 2 for my girlfriend’s playthrough and now any time she wants to play by herself my character is stuck in her party, not following her around and taking up a slot that can’t be allocated to one of the origin characters.
(UPDATE: This last bit may have been a transient bug; I was able to get the character to follow again after some troubleshooting. Still can’t swap the character for an NPC though.)
So unless you know your other multiplayer buddies can always play with you, think twice about MP or you may be at a disadvantage.
It’s not the best, but you can group the other player characters with your character so they just follow you around the same way the origin characters do. You still lose the slot, but it’s otherwise the same as using an origin character.
My wife left early last night while we were playing and her character ended up coming in clutch in many combats. Figuring out I could get her to follow me was a game changer
Yeah, it’s weird. Last night group and split were having no effect on the character, but after a bunch of restarts and updating to the preview build of SteamOS I’m able to group again. So at least there’s that. (No idea which if any of those things resolved the bug, unfortunately.)
It’s looking like I will only get to play around 3 hours a week with friends and I’m ready. Last night’s session was fantastic. It felt like meeting up once a week for a more simplified DnD session. We got through a fair chunk of content.
You may never be able to reach the end of the game, but I think if you enjoy the base gameplay then it’ll still be very worthwhile
